The woman glanced at him again. She fussed with a few of the magazines without selecting one. Her nails were bitten down and the dark red paint chipped. Her lips were chapped. She bounced her knee, then stopped it, then bounced it again. That might have been nerves. She also had a bit of a twitch, which could have been nerves as well but might mean the long-term use of certain human medications. Ray couldn’t find anything medicinal in her scent, although that didn’t always mean anything.
She mostly smelled of freshly ground coffee, and beneath that, hand soap and lip balm—which she wasn’t wearing, so Ray assumed a stick or pot of the balm had come open in her purse. She ought to have a coat or a sweater if she was going to be out for hours on a fall day in just a blouse. Ray wondered what had happened to Calvin’s cardigan.
He listened for Cal again, heard sighing and then Benny, weary, explaining something. Everyone was exhausted and risking so much. At least all of it wasn’t about Ray. That was all Ray had to reassure himself for the moment. He would never ask them to do what they were doing, take these risks, work so hard for an uncertain end. That they had chosen to do it said a great deal about them. They cared about justice. Not the bigger system deciding what that meant and how to enforce it, but justice itself. The reach for it in places like this, done by people like Cal, or Gary, or Truman, who was back on the phone putting out another fire, at least until suddenly dropping the phone onto the receiver and leaping out of his seat.
He paused at the threshold to say to Ray, “Excuse me for just a moment,” and was shouting his head off at someone before he was out of sight and the door closed behind him.
Ray watched him go, then flicked an irritated glance at the magazine in his lap. He wasn’t very good at crosswords, but he didn’t think whoever had done this one had even been trying.
“Are you waiting too?” The human asked politely. Her voice was low all the time, and surprisingly even considering how anxious she was.
Ray shook his head. “I’m waiting, but not for an appointment. My…” He paused, frowning, then began again more slowly, deciding to try the word. “My husband is back there. He works here.”
The woman’s shoulders eased down a half an inch. Some humans did that when they realized they were around certain beings, or when phrases and words like that were used, ‘my husband’ said by someone male. She was still tense with whatever she needed help with and possibly because of being alone with Ray, but that had calmed her at least a little bit. It made up for Ray needing to use a human-world substitute for what Cal was.
“No ring?” she asked after another minute. The magazines didn’t appeal to her and Ray couldn’t blame her for that.
Ray glanced at his hands, bare of any signs to indicate commitment according to the human rules of this time and place. She probably meant well, but it was another reminder that Ray not only couldn’t manage to be a proper were, he couldn’t even pretend to be human. “It’s all new,” he offered, stilted. “He’d probably lose one anyway. He’s part fairy.”
Without the sunlight hitting them, the woman’s eyes were more light brown than amber. Thoroughly human then. A very tired human, who had a somewhat blank expression on her face at the idea of a half-fairy, as if she didn’t entirely know what that meant. She didn’t know any fairies that well. New to the village and possibly the city.
Ray ought to let that be that now that some of the awkwardness was gone and she seemed more at ease. But he watched her bounce her leg again and fidget with her beads, then he closed his magazine.
“You live in the village?” He kept his voice low and made sure it wasn’t rumbling with any growls to alarm her.
She nodded. “Yeah. For now. It’s new,” she added, although her quick smile was already fading. “Four of us in a basement apartment, but… anyway. That’s not your problem.” She raised her hand, got a good look at her nails, and sighed before putting her hand firmly on her knee. She had some coffee stains in her nailbeds as well. Ray had seen those before on the workers at the independent coffee shops that ground their own beans.
“Sometimes it’s good to have people close,” Ray tried, wishing Cal or Benny were there. People did not expect Ray to have reassuring things to say. The woman looked at him, startled or disbelieving. “If they’re good people,” Ray tacked on, only to end up frowning. “Are they good people?”
The stare she gave Ray said she didn’t know how to answer that. But Ray wouldn’t have been able to classify a lot of his colleagues either, and he liked that she considered it with enough attention to make her leg momentarily stop bouncing.
“I guess,” she declared finally, but then shrugged. “We’re not friends, but they aren’t murderers, I don’t think.”
Ray felt his frown deepen.
She gave Ray an uncertain glance, then a much longer, scrutinizing look before she must have realized she was staring and turned away. “It’s temporary.” Her tone changed. Ray vaguely thought she was humoring him, but her expression was still so serious. “Or, it’s supposed to be. Before something better comes along.”
Ray tipped his head subtly toward her, but her heartbeat was much steadier and slower now compared to when she’d first come in. Her stomach growled. She put a hand over it, the way humans sometimes did, embarrassed by the sound. Ray wondered if she knew he’d heard it. Maybe she hadn’t realized she was talking to a being.
“‘Better’ can take a long time.” Ray had to stamp down the growl that wanted to rise up. “We don’t always have a long time. Things should be easier, better, now.”
“Yeah.” She readjusted her position in the chair, like she wanted to sit on her knees but wouldn’t in public. Her scrutinizing look returned, making her gaze sharper and taking some of the exhaustion from her face. “Yeah, exactly,” she said with energy. “You’re supposed to get a job that lets you go to school and pay the bills, because you have to go to school, they all say so, but then they don’t give you hours at that job because they don’t think you’re reliable. But that’s because your roommate keeps unplugging your phone to charge theirs and your phone is your alarm clock. Or your roommate’s boyfriend eats your groceries, and then you have to work nine hours plus a bus ride on no food, and all you want to do is sit down. And then there’s homework and studying, which I like, but it’s hard to like it or care about it when you’re hungry, and tired. I have to…” She shifted in her seat again. “I’m supposed to eat right—regularly. The doctor said so.”
Ray nodded. “Food can be medicine. Someone smart told me that.”
“Yeah,” she agreed with an added bob of her head. “Sorry, anyway. It’s my problem. I’ll deal with it. I’ll deal. Sorry. Didn’t meant to dump any of that on a stranger.”
“But that’s why you’re here?” Ray guessed. “You’re looking for help with a new place to live or a new job?” The job search alone sounded daunting, and he would bet the center’s career counseling services were booked months in advance. Finding a place to live was challenging enough, as Ray remembered it from when he’d first come to Los Cerros. That had been forever ago, when housing had been cheaper, but no humans at the time had been interested in a werewolf roommate. “Both? While still in school? That’s a lot.” He kept his frown. “Too much, without help.” Which was why she was here. Why she was so anxious. Although her empty stomach would have something to do that as well.
The woman gave Ray an another assessing look, then reached into her purse without answering. The lip balm, when she pulled it out, had no cap, and bits of dust or lint were stuck to the balm itself. She bit down on her bottom lip, but Ray saw it tremble first. “Fuck,“ she said, so softly a human might not have heard it.
“Things can be very ‘all at once,’” Ray offered. Penn was right about that, like most things.
“Fuck,” the woman said again, shakier. “Yeah. ‘All at once’ is exactly it.”
Ray tossed the magazine to the coffee table and got out of his too-small chair to grab one of the disinfecting wipes he’d smelled around Truman’s desk. He used it to wrap up the open lip balm, then threw it all away in the bin by the reception desk before sitting down again.
“Thanks.” The woman shut her purse with a final gesture. The cap and whatever mess was in there would wait until she was alone, Ray guessed. She might cry then, without an audience.
